from "Consciousness Self-Learns"
1
Plants and rocks lay under night sky; ground is a subject of sky; the relation's a force.
I combine descriptions with ideas of forces; my photograph of night sky's like a text of symbols.
Look inside when you are struggling; every cell in your body emits light.
Cilia beat rhythms into space, signaling cells of wildflowers in a field, signaling sky.
I connect to it, holding the hand of our friend, who's sleeping.
When I look at a constellation, I construct lines from indivisible points, bind seeing to an infinity of points and single brights, at the same time.
I may not recall these thoughts tomorrow, and I'm anxious, as if stars had extinguished.
Then, talking to you about his illness provokes tension, disagreement that stirs in my memory lost thoughts.
Our difference became a permeable membrane between each person and the whole.
Even though my mind focused within bounds, it's indivisible from sky I see, because seeing is as a field.
Looking is an innate impulse toward wholeness.
Copyright Credit: Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, "Excerpt from "Consciousness Self-Learns" (page 11)" from A Treatise on Stars. Copyright © 2020 by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
Source: A Treatise on Stars (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2020)